My press briefing at AICC Hdqrs. 2nd July 2018

Dr. Singhvi said intolerance in itself is a form of violence and an obstacle to the true growth and democratic spirit. This is what Mahatma Gandhi said. Intolerance itself be considered to be violence. We say it to you that absolute anarchy, mob frenzy, Jungle Raj, these have become the new three symbols of Shri Modi’s New India. ‘ न्यू इंडिया कब आएगा, हमको पता नहीं, लेकिन ये तीन नए सिम्बल आ गए हैं। Because the unprecedented atmosphere of hate, violence and mutual distrust has taken over the rumour mongering, a state aided or a state winged licence to kill. Decimation of the rule of law has started a new movement, which we never heard of before – a lynching movement and if it is not, it should shake our collective conscience.

I am asking you after all we are Indians. India is same as far as structure of the country is concerned for 70 years. We have the same police, the same administration, and the same authorities as far as the structure are concerned. Merely by change of Government four years ago, in past four years, how is this lynching government started? I am asking myself and through you to the Nation.

When this State gives a licence to kill with impunity, when the state abdicates its solemn responsibility to uphold the rule of law, you will have vigilante, you will have death and merciless killing of purely innocent persons and it is our bounden duty to question it, to stand up, to castigate it and to decry it because it is our collective conscience which is at stake. We are not able to pin point the reason because it is easy to deflect the reason to talk of individual facts and circumstance of individual case. But we cannot deny or escape the fact that under this new dispensation for the last four years, it is getting with a wing of canard political patronage directly or impliedly.

In the past 4 years, we Indians have added a new word in our socio-political vocabulary and that phrase is ‘Lynchings’- One cannot be definite about the reason of such killings, but one can be certainly definite that under the Narendra Modi Government, this new phenomena is getting a definite political patronage. An unprecedented atmosphere of fear, fueled with hearsay is being creating, actively aided and abetted by the state to terrorize gullible people.

The recurring incidents of lynching and targeted mob violence against vulnerable groups reported from various parts of the country are a direct challenge thrown to the Modi Govt to at the process of rule of law.

What is absolutely reprehensible is that the state has completely abdicated its responsibility in the quest to add fuel to this madness. In many cases it has also assisted, aided and abetted such acts of violence and even justified and condoned them. We must ask ourselves do we need an India filled with hate and violence, or do we need a peaceful India where social harmony is paramount for development.

A new spate of Lynchings has taken place whereby ‘child lifters’ has become a new medium of rumuor mongering and mob justice. In just the past month alone 28 Indians have been killed in lynchings: 5 People in Maharashtra’s Dhule(yesterday), Two were lynched earlier in Maharashtra, 7 in Jharkhand, Four people in Tripura, Two people each in Assam, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana and one each in Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh. These are just the recorded fatalities. The number of unrecorded ones is far greater and unimaginable.

From Assam’s Karbi Anglong lynching to the lynching of Sukanta Chakrabarty (33) was hired by the Tripura State Government to create awareness against rumour mongering and lynchings was himself lynched by a mob suspecting him of being a child-lifter. From the despicable and horrifying Hapur lynchings whose video we all saw on our television sets to the present terrifying lynching of 5 people of a nomadic community in Maharashtra’s Dhule, yesterday. From a woman hacked to death in Gujarat to a 40 year old man lynched in Chhattisgarh.

What is most distressing that in case after case- the Ministers of BJP ruled states and its leaders have either been a cause of abetment or flagrantly justified this phenomenon.

Three lynched in a day over ‘child-lifting’, Tripura minister stands by role in one rumour

Three lynchings happened two days after an 11-year-old boy was found dead with cut marks on his body in Mohanpur, just 25 km from state capital Agartala, and rumours spread that his kidneys had been removed. The discovery of the body had led to a clash between residents and policemen, leaving more than 10 people injured on both sides.

Tripura Minister for Education and Law Ratan Lal Nath had visited the boy’s family the same day, June 26, and in a video, was heard telling a gathering that “the kidney was taken out of the boy’s body after making a round cut”. Nath also said “never had Tripura witnessed such an incident” and that the incident was linked to “kidney smugglers” with probable “international” connections.

Shockingly, later when the Tripura CM, Shri Biplab Deb visited the boy, he said that that both the ‘kidneys’ of the boy were intact, after the post mortem report. This clearly demonstrates how a BJP Minister added fuel to the fire.

In yet another condemnable statement, BJP MP Jharkhand, Shri Nishikant Dubey, has recently said that he will pay the legal fees for four people who have been accused lynching two men in Godda.

In July, last year, Nityanand Mahto, the media in-charge of BJP’s Ramgarh unit, Jharkhand was arrested over last week’s mob lynching of a man.

It is high time; the BJP Government takes note of this widespread mob frenzy and lynching incidents. BJP would do better to take note of the anger which is engulfing the citizens of India against vigilantism by their own party men. Four years have passed, and we have seen enough platitudes, speeches and alibis, it is time for some corrective action.

On a reply to a question that since you have talked of intolerance, what is your stand on the kind of trolling Ms. Sushma Swaraj has undergone, Dr. Singhvi said Sushma Swaraj Ji‘s tweet must be about ten days ago, I do not remember now and the trolling must be about a week old, I was not in this country till three days ago. I have condemned it on the first day while I was abroad on my tweet. That is point No. 1. Point No. 2 – Congress Party has never supported it. Point No. 3 – I am not talking of Ms. Sushma Swaraj – anybody who creates a Frankenstein Monster must remember, that the definition of Frankenstein Monster’s is – that they swallow you up. Anybody who rides a tiger must know that the tiger has to decide when to eat up, you cannot decide when to dismount. This is a tiger put beneath Ms. Sushma Swaraj by the party to which she belongs. She cannot say so – let me say it on her behalf. She is the victim of the Frankenstein Monster and the tiger which her party, her party’s thinking and her party’s ‘soch’ has created and unfortunately it is Abhishek Singhvi who has to condemn it on twitter. How many of her party colleagues have condemned it? Congress Party has condemned it. How many of her party colleagues have condemned it? I do not want to say it here, but even a worst troll, even though you did not ask the question, a worst trolling has been done about my colleague Ms. Priyanka Chaturvedi. It does not matter whether it is Ms. Priyanka Chaturvedi or Ms. Sushma Swaraj – how does it matter? The point is – is this India we want to live in? We had social media earlier also; social media was not invented four years ago. The point I am making is that the message you are sending is the climate you are creating, the climate you are creating is precisely this climate. Today it can bite you, tomorrow it will bite you, it will bite her, and it will bite me.

To a question that Shri Jyotiraditya Scindia, MP yesterday advocated for fixed term for a Prime Minister and Chief Minister’s, whether the Congress Party also endorses his views, Dr. Singhvi said I think you have to see contextually, he might be expressing in a particular context his own view. It is a democratic country, in seminars and debates, we do that. But, to ascribe it immediately to a political party, I do not think he intends it leave aside we saying so. So I think these are matters, all such matters require first of all a very solid long discussion within a party. Secondly they require across party discussions. Somebody expresses a view bonafide without intending to commit a party, why should you start raising that?

To another question on the lowest growth in FDI and that LIC is putting funds in IDBI; Dr. Singhvi said we have condemned this constant tom-tomming by the Government about the economy. The former Finance Minister, the current Finance Minister, the true Finance Minister and the fake Finance Minister, whoever it is, every day give us vitamin pills of reassurance. The reality is the kind of figures you are telling us. They never tell you that a five year low of exports is reached. Rate of growth of export is at a four and half years low. FDI is at a four years low. Rate of, off take of credit is at an all time lowest. Make in India has failed except in the acronyms and the jumlas’ of the Prime Minister. So, I think the facts, nobody is prepared to answer. All that you hear is that we will do this in 2022, we will have New India. I am not even talking of the usual point we made before you because we have become tired of making that point. Jobs, jobs and jobs. This is the reality.

Secondly, my colleagues have taken a briefing on LIC when I was not here. But I want to make one short point, I do not want to repeat. This Government is adept at subterfuge, at slate of hand, at jugglery – one jugglery you have seen that how quickly after coming to power they have changed the GDP base level. Another jugglery is that you are in deficit, my right arm is suffering, so I cut some finger of my left arm and put it on my right arm and I say I am so healthy. I hide my left hand. That is what is happening.

Poor LIC which has no option, they have found that it is some kind of a jackpot waiting to be milked, a cash cow waiting to be milked. So LIC, because it will be a long time to show a negative red balance sheet there, is being asked to invest in all and sundry. Is this not a complete fraud on the people? Can it be called anything mildly knowing it is a deliberate fraud?